The moment Mo got his hands on the Book of Links, he could barely hold himself back even for a second.
He was dying to jump straight into the Marvel world, find Nick Fury, and throw a whole gold bar right at his face, announcing: "Why don't you guys at S.H.I.E.L.D. just team up with me from now on?"
Or maybe go track down Tony Stark and hit him with some Fallout references for fun.
And if that guy still hadn't fixed his palladium poisoning problem, Mo wouldn't mind pulling out a bucket of milk and force-feeding it to him to see if it could cure the DEBUFF or something.
But as eager as Mo was, he knew he still had to make preparations.
Last time, the moment he awakened his Stand, Steve, he was yanked into the Marvel world by the Book of Ages with nothing but a few gold ingots on him—broke as could be.
Luckily, Lady Luck was on his side and he pulled the Ender Hand. Otherwise, even a low-tier enemy like an Abomination would've wrecked him.
Since he got burned last time, Mo was determined to be fully prepped this time.
Especially when it came to reality-testing Minecraft items—he was very interested in that. After all, the Ender Hand turned out to be absurdly useful in the real world. So this time, he organized a whole stash of stuff, intending to test all of them one by one after bringing them into reality.
Good thing Steve had drawn the Alchemy Bag too—otherwise, there was no way he could've carried all that.
It took Mo a long time to sort through the items. By the time he was finally satisfied and stashed everything into the bag, the sky had already gone dark. Then, he had Steve pull out the Book of Ages and right-clicked it open.
The next second, a tide of black mist surged from the book and swallowed both of them whole.
A brief sensation of weightlessness followed—and then silence. Everything stilled. Mo eagerly opened his eyes… only to be immediately blasted in the face by a fierce wind carrying a wave of sand.
"…A desert?"
Mo blinked in confusion and started scanning his surroundings.
Yep, he was definitely in a desert—sand dunes all around, a few withered plants struggling to survive in the harsh environment.
Fortunately, it was nighttime now, which made everything pitch-black. His visibility was severely limited, but off in the distance, he could make out a faint glimmer—maybe a camp or something.
"Don't tell me I've been dumped in Afghanistan again?"
Mo sighed, rubbing his temples. "Come on, I don't want to kill terrorists anymore, alright? Could you at least teleport me to somewhere a bit more epic next time?"
Honestly, Mo had reason to think that.
In the game, every time players used the Book of Ages, they were always teleported to the same coordinates—just like how players spawn at the same spot in Minecraft's overworld. Mo suspected his Marvel-world spawn point might be that cave again, meaning he'd have to escape Afghanistan every single time.
But as Mo was still processing that unfortunate possibility, something suddenly flashed in the sky. In this inky blackness, the light stood out starkly, immediately grabbing his attention.
"Huh? What's that?"
Curious, Mo looked up and spotted a small glowing object in midair.
It was too dark to make out clearly, but whatever it was, it streaked across the sky in a long arc… and was heading straight for him.
"…Oh, crap."
As this meteor-like thing hurtled toward him, Mo instinctively triggered his teleportation ability.
A burst of purple light—and he vanished from the spot.
A second later, the object slammed into the ground with a deafening BOOM that shook the earth. A massive shockwave erupted, sending waves of sand rolling like a tsunami, engulfing everything around.
Thankfully, Mo could teleport. A few quick blinks, and he dodged the worst of the sandstorm.
"Getting flattened by a meteor the moment I teleport in… is this a joke?"
After avoiding the blast, Mo eyed the nearby crater and couldn't help but snark, "System, shouldn't you unlock a Meteor mod for me after that?"
To his surprise, a system notification actually chimed in his head.
[System Notification: New mod feature detected. Access granted after analysis.]
"…Wait, for real?"
Mo was stunned to hear that mechanical voice in his mind.
Shaking off the surprise, he teleported over to the crater, determined to unlock whatever freebie mod he'd just earned.
But when he reached the impact site, he realized something was off.
There was no meteor at the center of the crater.
Instead, what stood there was a glowing, red-hot hammer embedded in a stone. It was still radiating heat from its fall.
"A… hammer?"
Mo instantly recognized it—Thor's hammer.
So the MCU's timeline was clearly ahead of Minecraft's. He'd only been gone a short while, but Thor's plotline had already begun.
Which meant he probably missed the events of Iron Man 2.
Tony Stark should've already cured his palladium poisoning by now, discovered the clue from his dad with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s help, and invented a new element.
While Mo was piecing the story together in his head, another system notification chimed in.
[System Notification: New mod feature detected. Access granted after analysis.]
"Huh?"
The unexpected alert made Mo pause.
The object in the crater clearly wasn't a meteor, so why was the system acting like it detected something new?
What kind of mod are you trying to unlock here, huh? Hammer Core?
Still, speculation aside, Mo reached out toward the hammer.
The moment he touched Thor's hammer, the system triggered again:
[System Notification: Uru—the Metal of the Gods—internal structure analyzed. 30% mod access granted.]
Hearing that, Mo suddenly understood.
So this new mod had nothing to do with the hammer's powers—it was likely a materials-based expansion, like a Tinkers' Construct alloy mod.
But with only 30% of the mod downloaded so far, he figured he'd need to research more special materials to unlock the rest. Stuff like Vibranium, meteorite ore, maybe even Tiberium…
With that in mind, Mo pulled out his phone and dialed Nick Fury.
"Mo?" Fury answered almost instantly, his voice clearly surprised. "When did you get back?"
"Got itchy hands," Mo replied casually. "You've got half an hour. Bring me Captain America's shield so I can touch it."
"…What?"
"I'll wire you twenty tons of gold afterward. Consider it off-the-record funding for S.H.I.E.L.D.'s research into the Tesseract."
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